‘That’s a pelican,’ Kenzie said with an amused smile.
‘It can be a bear’s name too, can’t it?’ she asked, turning to pin Ewan with a wide-eyed look. ‘He looks like a Mr Percival.’
Ewan sent a quick glance towards Kenzie, not really wanting to be caught in the middle of a mother–daughter naming dispute, but she just shook her head.
‘We watchedStorm Boylast night,’ she explained.
‘Oh. Right.’
‘You can name him whatever you like,’ Kenzie told her.
‘Then I’ll call him Mr Percival,’ she decided, sitting the bear next to her on a chair beside him.
‘What do you say to Ewan?’ Kenzie asked lightly.
He watched as a big toothy smile followed an adorable drawn-out, ‘Thank you, Ewan,’ in the sweetest little singsong voice he’d ever heard. Man, he was seriously losing it.
‘You’re welcome.’
Footsteps drew his attention to a woman dressed in jeans and a red shirt with wavy dark blonde hair. ‘Hello, I’m Sam, Kenzie’s mother.’
Ewan stood up from his chair and reached out for the small hand, clasping it gently. ‘Ewan Campbell. It’s nice to meet you.’
Heavier footsteps alerted him to yet another arrival, a broad-shouldered man dressed in jeans and a well-worn work shirt.
‘This is my husband, Jack,’ Sam introduced. Ewan shook the older man’s hand, careful to hide his grimace at the near-bone-crunching handshake that conveyed a silent messageveryloudly: this man would happily hurt him if he found a need to.
‘Ewan.’ He nodded, resisting the urge to shake some feeling back into his hand as he sat down.
‘So, you’re from the Gold Coast,’ Jack said, reaching for a cup and spooning some sugar in.
‘Not originally, but I’ve been living there for almost four years.’
‘Where you from originally?’ Jack asked.
‘South Australia,’ Ewan answered. ‘Scotland before that.’
‘Oh, Scotland. How lovely. My parents did some travelling over there and loved it. How long have you been in Australia?’ Sam asked, handing across a cup.
‘My family moved over when I was ten.’
‘What do you do for a crust?’ Jack continued the grilling.
‘I’m in private equity, mainly,’ he said, and saw the man study him a little oddly, maybe due to the fact he wasn’t exactly dressed as an executive. ‘We buy and sell businesses. Well, at least, I used to. I worked for a trucking company for a couple of years before that, handling freight and logistics. Before that, I worked on the family property with my father, in South Australia. That’s where I’m headed. Time for a bit of a change, work out what I want to do next.’
‘Home is always good for working things out,’ Sam said gently, and something about the softness in her eyes suddenly made his chest tighten.
He cleared his throat quickly. ‘Yeah. It’ll be good to get back there for a bit.’
He hadn’t expected to feel so emotional about going home, maybe because it had always been so connected to the tension between him and his dad. But now, he didn’t care about his pride or past hurt. He just felt a pull to go home. He missed his mum and his sister and his nephews—he saw them once a year when they came up for holidays on the coast, but he hadn’t been home in a long time.
‘What do your parents run?’ Jack asked, and Ewan turned his gaze to the other man, grateful to steer the conversation to other things.
‘Beef cattle mainly, with some cropping.’
‘What cattle do you run?’
‘Droughtmaster, Angus and Shorthorn.’
